[futureprimitivist]

Avenues, Dead Ends, and Neurological Life Rafts

I read some of your writings about avenues. The ones that stretch far and the culdusachs that lead to nowhere. I haven’t heard that word in ages, since before I moved to Japan, and I remembered just how articulate you were with your vocabulary. I could not even remember how to spell it.

If New York were a grid, and Tokyo is a sprawling nest of meandering back alleys. Some large arteries, but they’re filled with cars, or train traffic with thousands of people passing through.

For me it’s about creating the routines along the twisting arteries that branch off into tertiary experiences. Some days I will try other small tertiary paths- a different cafe, restaurant everyday. Sometimes I know the exact route I want to take and do the same solid routine over.

There are a lot of dead ends, and maybe a certain part of the neurological network has to get cut off, and I stop going to those places. The place still exists, but I haven’t been there in months and months. It is almost as if it doesn’t exist. Like string theory, where when you’re not looking at something, or not observing an electron, it transforms into an existence of approximate multiplicity. It exists, but only as a loose cloud of information..

I take medication now, but somehow I still seem to have indecision. I try one path, and then realize it’s a tough one. So I reroute to another one. I’m constantly rerouting. It’s paralyzing, and I’m not in tap with my spiritual guides- the spidey senses, or the compass that allows my spirit to flow like water to the next chapter.

I don’t know what my next path is. I can’t believe I am as lost as I am at my age. It makes me wonder, how I’ve been meandering for this long in my life. Surely, something would happen, maybe some freak accident and it could all be over soon.

There are no signs of any pattern, no recurring themes, nobody to rely on. Just lost, on a life raft in the open ocean.

[futureprimitivist]

I walk around Tokyo a lot lately, the far west side. The place where Studio Ghibli is located, and a kind of countryside type of area, a bit mystical, very quiet, open fields and dull expressions. I wonder how I’m always getting out of the city, at every moment that I can. Does my soul really exist here, or am I constantly hopping out of the matrix?

When I left New York, to my surprise, so many people reached out to me, shocked, saying condolences of a certain kind. It is almost as if my existence had vanished, my soul, zapped out of the city.

I’m invisible in Tokyo now. I blend right in with the crowd. There are none of my writings to be read, or my photos to be seen. On weekends I don’t even stay in central Tokyo. I wonder if my soul really exists here? Or if it can be visible? I walk for long times, like an invisible ghost. My language not understood, nor my style understood. My stoner demeanor, unknown or not comprehended. I work on a tower in New York, around the corner from the office that fired me. It is a beautiful expensive building that they could never design. I work with people who know nothing of my background or my past life. Tabula Rasa- rasa libre 

I wonder if it is time to head back…after my long trips to Lake Biwa and the mountains of Kyoto. Perhaps I will not find public projects to work on in Japan after all. The country is not progressive to open ideas, so maybe I should leave it that way. They can live it how they want.

Maybe- I have a city that is waiting for me to arrive.

[arkitekcher]

Concurso Vil·la Urània  |  Carles Enrich Collaborators: Alfred Palomero & Angel Rosales | Render: 1. 2. Location: Farró, Barcelona, Spain

[futureprimitivist]

Took a long time to find the ref...

[earthangeal]

A mural of a forest in the South Bronx, New York. Captured by Thomas Hoepker, 1983

Mural Art by Alan Sonfist, 1978. The building still exists, however the mural is no longer there

[futureprimitivist]

[futureprimitivist]

Do you believe in parallel universes? Like lives with people who exist playing similar roles as yours, but perhaps on a completely different trajectory. Or lives that repeat with similar characters over the decades. Strings of life the happen both multi-generationally and within our lifetimes, our cities.

Perhaps people-at different levels of consciousness depending on karmic points in past lives. It just keeps repeating until somebody decides to leave civilization and become a monk before he dies.

The night is quiet without distractions. In the city with no purpose other than to keep working on it. It’s like the opposite of chiseling away at the city. Perhaps similar to throwing mud at the cliff until it sticks.

[futureprimitivist]

Lost in Labyrinth

[futureprimitivist]

[futureprimitivist]

Pre-pandemic or post?

The times we lived in before… were they actually that much better or were we not awakening to how traumatized we all actually are?

  What did you hate about that capitalistic life?

And then think about how the pandemic has made things better for you.

  How it has changed things? For better or worse.

  You can contact anyone and most of the time, they will listen.

Or will they?

   Don’t worry. They’ve got your back. It’s 3 AM and I remember last week bawling at random hours of the night.

  I literally had to do that in order to process this new world.

It’s totally normal.

  Don’t judge yourself poorly because of the Capitalistic preconceptions that drive you to work 40 hours a week of your fucking life.

  Unless you truly enjoy it.

  Find solace in the fact that this emotion is like a collective consciousness that is mourning the loss of a past era.

There will be new times. And life itself I’ve learned is like a continuum. 

You can always go back in your memory and think about a funny time that you had and be right there again. 

I would opt however to begin understanding what makes you tick about that? I have no clue what I’m saying now. And now that I’m writing I’m actually getting tired finally.

Comparison is worst way of living.

  And yet it is so easy and so common.

  Understand that the dog pack has its it’s alphas, betas, and…omegas.

And realize that humans can evolve past that. We have, we can, and we will continue to do so.

  We can support each other and make new connections.

I want to tell you my story not for the sake of my own ego. But because I think it’s going to help you during these times, whoever you are.

I have a story for you to hear.

[jamesnord]

There are really two types of people in the world, those of speed by beautiful things, and those who can’t help but stop. I stop, I’ve always stopped. 

[futureprimitivist]

“As an architect, Eero Saarinen was a shameless experimenter. He had no signature style, which might be the reason historians have not treated his work with much interest—they tend to favor trademarked brands, as they are easier to package and sell. I tend to think of him as an expressionist: each of his buildings expresses what he saw as the essence of its function. A hockey rink is about gliding and flow; an airplane terminal is about arrivals and departures and the symbolism they evoke; a research laboratory is about logic. His many other buildings, such as the CBS Headquarters in New York—an unassailable black granite column—express Saarinen’s ideas of their very different purposes. The lesson we take away from his work is that one style cannot fit all. We can only wonder at how successful he would have been today.“ - Lebbeus Woods, Saarinen’s Last Experiment

[futureprimitivist]

“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” - Eliel Saarinen

[futureprimitivist]

Five years of fireflies in oil; five years of ants gnawing . through red flags; five years of pockmarked suns, your face: . each ray, each sweltering August; five years of unraveling, . hair loosening from your crown like a rotten tooth; . five years of how easy it is to split a frog in two; five . years of pollen in your mouth, that bitter buzzing; . one year of leeches along the spine, fattening; two years: . are rats good to eat? Another year: sun-licked pots; . your birth year: the cold bones of a stranger’s hand; . the quiet year: no one wants to look at a gaping . fish, swallowing water endlessly; the sixth year: . ​to place these flowers on or in the graves? . . . -When You Died by Jane Wong

[futureprimitivist]

Subtleties.

[fig18]

DA_Research-FW-N1 — 07.01.17 / 23:20 EST 

[futureprimitivist]

[aredotna]

Daoiz and Velarde Cultural Center by Rafael de la Hoz Arquitectos